Chely Wright releases all-original Holiday EP Santa Will Find You

Chely Wright Releases All-Original Holiday Album 

Santa Will Find You (Painted Red Music Group) dropped October 26

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US Tour Dates Added

This year CheIy has done two different projects all in one PledgeMusic campaign. Making a holiday EP (5 song album) and a regular Chely Wright studio EP titled REVIVAL, it's due out during early 2019. The crowd fund project was successfully funded by 868 pledgers, raising 111% of an unknown goal.

“I’m the first one in mid-to-late October to be pulling out my holiday records,” Chely Wright says with a chuckle, before naming Christmas albums by Nat King Cole, the Carpenters, Trisha Yearwood and Alan Jackson as favorites. 

Now the acclaimed singer-songwriter, activist and author has made her own contribution to the holiday shelf with SANTA WILL FIND YOU (October 26 / Painted Red Music Group), a new six-track EP of original songs, most of them shaped with friends and collaborators Richard Marx, Jeremy Lister and Mindy Smith.

Befitting an artist whose story is among the most compelling in country music history—from a hit-making Nashville starlet to a trailblazing LGBT advocate and thoughtful musical storyteller—Wright’s Christmas music reflects the fuller sense of humanity behind the holiday season.   

It’s a celebration of the pals we look forward to seeing each December, and an expression of yearning for the friends we’re missing. Finally, it’s a bittersweet homage to love—whether it’s been found, lost or is just sort of waiting to come around again.

Release Date: 26 Oct 2018

Label : Painted Music Group)

6 Tracks/ Time: 22:47 Miscellaneous

Amazon UK - Amazon.com - UK iTunes – US iTunes

 
Santa Will Find You finds Wright engaging with the holiday season in an honest and personal way before the first note is heard. When she began to think about possible cover art for the project, Wright saw that she needed to take a step back and process the mission at hand. “What is this music?” she asked herself. “What do I hope it does for people?” 
 
Her answer—to help inspire future memories—called for a detour down memory lane. “I hope this music becomes part of a new emotional landscape for listeners,” she adds.  “And that made me revisit why I wanted to make this record, and I was contemplative about my holiday memories.”
 
“I grew up in a small town in Kansas,” Wright begins, “and we either spent Christmas morning at our house or at my Aunt Char’s house or in Arizona at my grandparents’ house. We would wake up on Christmas morning and it was as magical as you would hope it is.”

The cover art, a childhood photo titled Captured on Christmas Morning of 1973, features Wright, age 3, her two siblings and two of her cousins. Tragically, one of the children in the photo, Wright’s cousin David, died in 1981 of complications from diabetes. He would have turned 50 this year.  When she called David’s mother, her Aunt Char, to ask if it’d be OK to use the image, the response was instantaneous and effusive. “She said, ‘Oh, I love it, I love it. He was a star,’” Wright recalls brightly. “It’s a neat way to honor the history of our family.” 

Photo Credit: Matthew Rodgers

The leadoff cut, “It Really Is (A Wonderful Life),” was written alone, on a quiet, post-breakup Christmas Eve in 2005, and eventually “took on a life of its own in a really beautiful way,” Wright says, having been covered by both Mindy Smith and the Indigo Girls.
 
On the title track “Santa Will Find You,” Wright honors the family she’s built with wife Lauren Blitzer and their twin boys, George and Everett.  “We were visiting our family in Pennsylvania for the holidays,” Chely remembers.  “In the weeks leading up to Christmas Day, our boys were totally, 1,000-percent freaked out that Santa would not know where to bring their presents. It’s a real thing that kids are concerned about!”

Billboard: Chely Wright Unwraps 'Santa Will Find You'

Related BLOG POST (Aug 2011): Chely Wright Married Lauren Blitzer - See Their Wedding Dresses

“Happy New Year, Old Friend” is a torchy, after-hours rumination on that time of year that’s “both the end of something and the beginning of something, which is a really interesting handoff,” Wright says. Perhaps even more interesting is the versatility of the song’s intent, with a message equally applicable to platonic pals or a deeply romantic pair. Marx’s iconic voice sidles up to Wright’s on “Christmas Isn’t Christmas Time,” which, with its “Be My Baby” beat and uplifting orchestral backing, is state-of-the-art pop craftsmanship. Longtime fans will find comfort in “Can’t Believe It’s Christmas,” a Wright/Lister effort whose contemporary Nashville vibe evokes the singer’s hits of the late ’90s and early 2000s. 
 
“I’m a mom and a wife. I’m a sister. I’m a friend. I’m a voting American. I’m an openly gay artist who is known to be a country music artist,” she says. “We have a lot of stories to tell as humans. Advocacy is part of my story, and singing about Christmas is part of my story as well.” 

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Tour Dates 

Dec 12 • Decatur, GA • Eddie’s Attic • TICKETS
Dec 13 • Dahlonega, GA • Crimson Moon • TICKETS
Dec 20 • Washington, DC • City Winery Wine Garden • TICKETS
Dec 21 • New York, NY • The Loft at City Winery • TICKETS
Dec 22 • Boston, MA • City Winery Haymarket Lounge • TICKETS
Dec 23 • Philadelphia, PA • Sellersville Theater • TICKETS
Jan 18-21 • Santa Rosa Beach, FL • 30A Songwriters Festival • TICKETS
Jan 26 • Spring Lake, MI • Seven Steps Up • TICKETS
Jan 25 • Three Oaks, MI • Acorn Theater • TICKETS
Jan 27 • Evanston, IL • SPACE • TICKETS
Feb 09 • Andover, MA • Crossroads Music Series • TICKETS
Chely Wright - Tour Dates